Halifax Overdraft - Changes to Accounts £1 a day

[bigyeti]

I received a reminder from the Halifax that I still have an unarranged overdraft. It included a paragraph in bold that they will charge me £5 per day unarranged overdraft fee.

 

This was followed by the usual info about their charges, how to transfer money into the bank and if I want, I can make an appointment to speak to someone at the bank or call.

 

 

 

Oh how I laughed...

[Bigdebtor]

I see the new HBOS slogan is "with you all the way". I take it that means they'll continue taking their £1, £2 or £5 per day from us for ever!

 

I remember what "all the way" meant when I was dating! I think that is what they are doing to us all now!

 

BD

[bigyeti]

I've amended a previous letter to give this, which I shall mail later today:

 

Dear Bank

 

I refer to your letter dated 6th February 2010 in which you remind us that we still have an unarranged overdraft. This is an error on your behalf. According to my records, my balance still stands at £1498.95. I have stated several times that we do not agree to the changes to the terms and conditions of our account and therefore you cannot charge your £1 per day charge to our account as this is unlawful.

 

In the letter we received on 20th January 2010, you say:

 

With regards to the changes to the account I can confirm we have complied with the terms and conditions.

 

This only applies to the part where you can change the terms and conditions providing you give notice. You have not complied to the terms that spell out our course of action if we do not agree to them. In other words:

 

If you do not agree to the change you can close your account. If you notify us that you do not accept a change, we will take this as notification that you wish to close your account immediately.

 

You cannot force us to agree to the changes. Unless you know of any legislation that states that you can force us to abide to your new terms and conditions. Bear in mind that such legislation would also apply to us and with that we could force you to agree to pay us £25 for each letter we have to send trying to make you see reason. We believe your new charges to be unlawful in line with the Consumer Protections from Unfair Trading Regulations Act 2008 and you are in fact prohibited under Part 2, section 3.-(3)(a) and (b);

3) A commercial practice is unfair if—

a) it contravenes the requirements of professional diligence; and

b) it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product.

 

I also believe your actions contravene the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999, section 5. (1) to (4):

 

1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.

3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract.

4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was.

and I also refer you to Schedule 2 "INDICATIVE AND NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF TERMS WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS UNFAIR";

1) Terms which have the object or effect of –

k) enabling the seller or supplier to alter unilaterally without a valid reason any characteristics of the product or service to be provided

Your terms also state that the overdraft is repayable on demand. However, we strongly suspect the reason you haven't chosen to do this is because the interest on our outstanding balance is considerably less than £1 per day. We fully intend to pay the overdraft back at the agreed rate of 19.5%, with a minimum payment of £10 per week and we reserve the right to make extra payments as and when possible. We are happy for the account to stay open until the account is settled in full. However, we reiterate that we do not accept the proposed charges regime, any attempt to levy the £1 per day overdraft charge or the ridiculous £5 per day unauthorised overcharge fee without our explicit consent in writing will be disregarded and will be reported to the FOS for investigation.

We are more than willing to consider any counter offer you may wish to make should you choose to not accept our proposal. I feel that this is a fair repayment scheme and I am in no doubt that the court will agree given our income and outgoings. It may be worth considering that if you still levy your unlawful £1 per day charge, the balance would not be paid off until August 2019. It will be a sorry day for justice if a court deems that to be acceptable.

In addition to the legislation cited above, we intend to recommend to the court that it investigates whether you may be liable for prosecution under section 4-(1) of the Fraud Act 2006;

1) A person is in breach of this section if he—

a) occupies a position in which he is expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of another person,

b) dishonestly abuses that position, and

c) intends, by means of the abuse of that position—

i) to make a gain for himself or another, or

2) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

I repeat just to make sure there is no ambiguity in our absolute refusal to accept this change of charging regime and that we wish to close the account.

We await notification of the closure of our account plus your acceptance of, or a counter offer to our reasonable overdraft repayment scheme.

Yours etc etc,

 

Us

[Crawfordo_x]

Hey everyone,

 

Been reading thru all the posts etc and been using the templates. I've not sent anything away yet, but wondered if somebody could have a look over my proposed letter? I've just finished studying Contract Law as part of my Law Degree so I probs could put a lot more Contract Law cases in there which would basically back up the principle of not being able to accept the conditions without express agreement, and them not being able to use silent as agreement.

 

I don't use my HBOS account anymore due to problems I had with several bank charges, so I changed over to Llloyds TSB and so far so good. I obviously have an overdraft on my account which was at £750 but I've paid £500 into it, so only £250. But was charged £26 at the end of January for the days I used the overdraft in December 2009, and at the end of February they are going to charge me £31 for the January usage. I called up Customer Services and had a total rant and half, and the silly woman on the phone just didn't have a clue. I honestly haven't received any letters from HBOS about this new £1 charge this and about dropped down dead on SUnday when I checked my account and seen the charges!! Anyway, long story short she's going to refund £35 into my account and pass my complaint onto the complaint team. But as I've got a bee in my bonnet about the bank and as they've ripped me off about the bank charges before, I'm putting my foot down and not letting them do it again.

 

Just gonna copy & paste the letter here, would appreciate if anyone has any suggestings on tweeking it / adding comments.

 

Thanks in advance..... Joanna

 

 

I refer to my telephone call of Sunday, 7th February 2010, and also to the correspondence which you advised you have sent out, but was never received by myself, in which you advised that my regular overdraft would be subject to a £1 per day charge from December 2009.

 

I wish to state my refusal of these unilaterally imposed terms. The agreement between you and me was that this overdraft was provided without a charge apart from the interest it attracts, and I have no wish for this to change, nor have you given me a choice in the matter.

 

I am in a situation where I can not just pay off my overdraft and leave, which effectively leaves me at the mercy of your iniquitous charges. I can advise though that since October 2009, I opened another bank account with another bank due to all the unnecessary unauthorised overdraft charges which were put on my account. I did make a complaint and called Customer Services several times but the charges were never refunded and I was so fed up, I decided to take my banking needs elsewhere.

 

Please be advised that I am reporting the matter to the attention of the Office of Fair Tradings, as I believe your actions:

• Contravene the Consumer Protections from Unfair Trading Regulations Act 2008 and are in fact prohibited under Part 2, section 3.-(3)(a) and (b): "(3) A commercial practice is unfair if—
  

(a) it contravenes the requirements of professional diligence; and

b) it materially distorts or is likely to materially distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product."

 

 

 

• I also believe your actions contravene the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999, section 5. (1) to (4):
  

5. - (1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

 

(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.

 

(3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract.

 

(4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was.

 

 

 

and I also refer you to Schedule 2 "INDICATIVE AND NON-EXHAUSTIVE LIST OF TERMS WHICH MAY BE REGARDED AS UNFAIR";

1) Terms which have the object or effect of –

k) enabling the seller or supplier to alter unilaterally without a valid reason any characteristics of the product or service to be provided

 

 

I don't consider the "simplification" you claim is your primary reason for this change to be a valid reason. Furthermore, I don't believe that your changes pass the test of transparency, as you have failed to give clear examples of what that daily charge equals in terms of the interest rate this equates to under typical amounts. Indeed, I believe that translated in a percentage, those rates would put your average loan shark to shame.

 

Please feel free to correct those figures, but this is what I have seen reported:

 

£0.01 Overdraft: 3,650,000%

£100 Overdraft: 365%

£500 Overdraft 73.5%

£1000 Overdraft: 36.5%

 

 

 

Furthermore the change is going to hit the hardest the people in the worst economic situation, as those who can afford it will leave in droves whilst those stuck in the living-in-the-overdraft trap will be the ones worst hit, unable to leave and hit for those fees month after month after month. In a lot of cases, it may lead people to try and raise additional funds by taking on consolidation loans to pay off the overdraft, when they may not be able to afford it in the first place, which would amount to irresponsible lending and/or a breach of the OFT's guidance on Unfair Business Practices 2.6 (b) "pressurising debtors to sell property, to raise funds by further borrowing or to extend their borrowing". Whilst I can't be sure of this happening, it is not inconceivable that quite a few of your customers will turn to you to find a way to solve the issue and may get talked into additional borrowing against common sense and OFT guidance.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, I believe that this very material change to your Terms and Conditions is a direct breach of the FSA waiver to which you agreed. I also wish to point out that I was told that “because I did not call when I received the letter(s) (these be the letters which I didn’t receive) to say that I didn’t agree with the terms, that they were automatically accepted.” As I am sure you are aware, silence does not constitute acceptance. Please refer to the case of Felthouse v. Bindley (1862).

 

I reiterate to you my absolute refusal to this change of charging regime and await your proposal to resolve this issue. You can simple not put in place Terms and Conditions when I have not expressly, by word or by written correspondence, my agreement to these conditions put in place.

 

 

 

I fully intend to pay the overdraft back at with a minimum payment of £75 per month and I reserve the right to make extra payments as and when possible. I am happy for the account to stay open until the account is settled in full. However, I reiterate that I do not accept the proposed charges regime, any attempt to levy the £1 per day overdraft charge or the ridiculous £5 per day unauthorised overcharge fee without our explicit consent in writing will be disregarded and will be reported to the FOS for investigation.

 

 

 

I am more than willing to consider any counter offer you may wish to make should you choose to not accept my proposal. I feel that this is a fair repayment scheme and I am in no doubt that the court will agree given my income and outgoings.

 

 

 

I repeat just to make sure there is no ambiguity in my absolute refusal to accept this change of charging regime and that I wish to close the account.

 

 

 

I await notification of the closure of my account plus your acceptance of, or a counter offer to my reasonable overdraft repayment scheme.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Me

 

[Undercover-Elsa]

Hi guys,

Have your charges fully kicked in yet?

My OH just got a statement with just £8 interest on a £3500 arranged overdraft

It does state in the sidebar that charges are £2 per day over £2500 so I wondered if they've c**cked up, been nice (hahahahaha) or if it's just a partial application of the new fees as its not fully kicked in yet?

This statement was up to 31st January. Last month he got around £55 in interest.

 

 

Elsa x

[Crawfordo_x]

Yeh I was charged £26 on 31st January for the use of my overdraft in December, and was due £31 at the end of February for the use in January. I called up and they've refuned £35 of my charges, so I'll still get charged something at the end of February.

 

It's an absolute cock up!

 

Joanna

[indebtstudent]

The only I would add to the letter is if they do demand full repayment of the overdraft, at the past terms, the ultimate sanction they have is to take you to court. At which point the court would look at your finances and order a repayment you can afford, which IS exactly what you are proposing. Therefore I believe a court would take a dim view of their stance, as you can show from correspondance you have been more than fair in an effort to resolve this.

 

Suspect they'll capitulate as soon as the FOS take a look at it. curious position to take as I've said all along.

[gtgiggs]

just wanted to ask if anyone was notified in writing from hbos regarding the amount of charges that were to come off at the end of the month??i never recieved anything regarding the amount due on 1st of feb. they just taken it like a sweety from a child the buggers

[surprise]

If you look on your bank statements they tell you each month how much they're debiting and date.

[jamraz]

despite adequately disputing the revised terms, complaining to eric daniels as well as their customer "services", and then infrming them of my f.o.s. complaint, they have just whacked a default notice on me....how does this work?...they make up some revised terms, then claim your in default??

[surprise]

They've not yet defaulted me but I have been receiving a reminder each week advising me they are charging £5 a day. Please themselves because they will have to take me to court to recover it. My complaint is with the FOS as well.

 

I would forward the default notice to the FOS to add to your file.

[coolchris]

despite adequately disputing the revised terms, complaining to eric daniels as well as their customer "services", and then infrming them of my f.o.s. complaint, they have just whacked a default notice on me....how does this work?...they make up some revised terms, then claim your in default??

 

Unfortunatly they dont give a monkeys. It seems that you will have to pay the OD back in some form or another. I could not pay back the full grand of my OD, so I had to wait until it went to their collections department before they were willing to accept MY terms of repayment...5 quid a week!!

Thats just how these greedy bstards work.

[surprise]

I've just received another document from the Halifax so checked it out and found out that they have credited my account with £4 cash and debited the charges for the month of £39.00. Has anyone else had this happen? I can't fathom out what their game is to credit £4!

[stacywoodhouse]

I've just received another document from the Halifax so checked it out and found out that they have credited my account with £4 cash and debited the charges for the month of £39.00. Has anyone else had this happen? I can't fathom out what their game is to credit £4!

 

Yea I got credited £4, not sure was that is about?

[surprise]

Really strange. My complaint is with the FOS so I shall print the statement out and ask them to query why they've credited this amount.

 

It did cross my mind that because their charges are so high and they've just woken up to how much it is going to cost their customers that they are trying to keep them down a bit. My charges were £39 - £4 = £35 which is what they were charging for going over the unauthorised overdraft previously used.

[stacywoodhouse]

Really strange. My complaint is with the FOS so I shall print the statement out and ask them to query why they've credited this amount.

 

It did cross my mind that because their charges are so high and they've just woken up to how much it is going to cost their customers that they are trying to keep them down a bit. My charges were £39 - £4 = £35 which is what they were charging for going over the unauthorised overdraft previously used.

 

good idea but I dont think that is right, I was charged £55 anc credited £4. I cannot be bothered to take this any further with them so have closed my single account and am paying a cheque in from a family member today for £1150 which will close my joint account with them. I know not all people will be in the position to do this but Halifax and FOS have not upheld my complaint so i'd rather not give Halifax the chance to get rich from its customers that bailed them out.

[0161linda10]

Today I discovered Halifax have charged me £105.00 for going over my arranged overdraft of £400.00 by just £2.80p with this new £5.00 a day charge, I have been with this bank for over 20 years and have watched as they slowly push away low end low earning customer bit by bit, first it removing counter services in their branches for us low grade Visa Electron account holders and now this £1.00 a day for arranged and £5.00 for unarranged overdrafts outrage.

They are playing a very clever game to get rid of us low earner customers by making their other accounts more attractive to the better off and business customer thus completely changing the image they once had back in the days I took my account.

 

They have refused to be reasonable with me even through in the whole 20 years I have had this arranged overdraft they have never allowed me to exceed it before by even a penny my card was always declined if the payment i wanted to make went over the £400.00, then hey ho like magic when they introduce this £5.00 a day fee they allow me to make a payment that put me over by £2.80, I honestly thought it was impossible because of what had always happened in the past for me to go over my overdraft so thought the £5.00 a day thing didn't affect me, how wrong could I be?

They cant get away with this they must be stopped they are taking advantage of the poorer people in society pushing them further and further down into poverty its so wrong and they have proved they show no loyalty to long standing customers such as myself so why should I show them any?

I am so angry and hope they loose so many customers they have to close that way it will be a warning to all other banks the public wont be pushed around like this and just lie down and accept it.

Grow up Halifax did you really think telling us this would make us better off was going to work it is clear from all the forums and comments your customers don't believe this.

[stacywoodhouse]

Today I discovered Halifax have charged me £105.00 for going over my arranged overdraft of £400.00 by just £2.80p with this new £5.00 a day charge, I have been with this bank for over 20 years and have watched as they slowly push away low end low earning customer bit by bit, first it removing counter services in their branches for us low grade Visa Electron account holders and now this £1.00 a day for arranged and £5.00 for unarranged overdrafts outrage.

They are playing a very clever game to get rid of us low earner customers by making their other accounts more attractive to the better off and business customer thus completely changing the image they once had back in the days I took my account.

 

They have refused to be reasonable with me even through in the whole 20 years I have had this arranged overdraft they have never allowed me to exceed it before by even a penny my card was always declined if the payment i wanted to make went over the £400.00, then hey ho like magic when they introduce this £5.00 a day fee they allow me to make a payment that put me over by £2.80, I honestly thought it was impossible because of what had always happened in the past for me to go over my overdraft so thought the £5.00 a day thing didn't affect me, how wrong could I be?

They cant get away with this they must be stopped they are taking advantage of the poorer people in society pushing them further and further down into poverty its so wrong and they have proved they show no loyalty to long standing customers such as myself so why should I show them any?

I am so angry and hope they loose so many customers they have to close that way it will be a warning to all other banks the public wont be pushed around like this and just lie down and accept it.

Grow up Halifax did you really think telling us this would make us better off was going to work it is clear from all the forums and comments your customers don't believe this.

 

Hi 0161linda10,

can you bring your overdraft down to below £300 and then upgrade to the ultimate reward current account which is fee free for the first £300, only drawback is it will cost £12.50 per month. this is what I have done with my account as per my previous post and then just going to pay off so much a month to clear and then close the account. The overdraft has to be paid off anyway so I'd rather just pay them what they lent me rather then what they lent me and some.

[0161linda10]

Hi there

 

Thanks for the advise they did offer me that but £12.50 to have it its a joke, I will have to do that through cant afford not to then reduce my overdraft until I can leave them.

However if we all just jump ship who is to say if they have been allowed to get away with this other banks we go to wont try this to, something to be said of getting paid in cash like the old days no charges at all for that and as we once thought the banks don't keep our money safe for us it would safer under our mattresses.

I am very disappointed with the Halifax after 20 years of hassle free banking to now have this dropped on us all.

Good luck

[surprise]

Did you notice whether they have credited your account with £4? I have reported this to the FOS for when they start investigating my account.

 

I use to have the old Electron card and as you say never a charge. What infuriated me about the Halifax was they told me that they were phasing these out but I have discovered that they have not phased these out at all and they are still being used. Someone on GAG quite recently said they were offered one, and I've also seen customers using them.

[0161linda10]

Hey guys I have just spoken to Halifax customer relations and asked for a breakdown of how my £2.80 has managed to generate fees of £105.00 I asked for a pound by pound breakdown to show my £2.80 and how this has cost them the £105.00 and they told me no because this is sensitive information and cant be sent to customer in other words we are not allowed to have this information because they cant justify these charges to us and showing the working out would prove this to us.

They are still refusing to credit my money back and sticking to the fact its my fault, I am so out of that bank.

[0161linda10]

no £4.00 credit for me nothing at all and no Electron is not phased out at all.

[Bigdebtor]

I suspect they have given you the £5 reward less 20% tax = £4. They give you this any month that you put in more than £1000.

 

I would e-mail John McFall MP and your local MP to complain. They are fed up with Halifax's £5 per day etc. charges.

 

BD

[Bigdebtor]

Hey guys I have just spoken to Halifax customer relations and asked for a breakdown of how my £2.80 has managed to generate fees of £105.00 I asked for a pound by pound breakdown to show my £2.80 and how this has cost them the £105.00 and they told me no because this is sensitive information and cant be sent to customer in other words we are not allowed to have this information because they cant justify these charges to us and showing the working out would prove this to us.

They are still refusing to credit my money back and sticking to the fact its my fault, I am so out of that bank.

 

The recent case going through the Scottish Sheriff Court should give you some hope of eventual revenge - watch this space!

 

BD;)

[stacywoodhouse]

Hi there

 

Thanks for the advise they did offer me that but £12.50 to have it its a joke, I will have to do that through cant afford not to then reduce my overdraft until I can leave them.

However if we all just jump ship who is to say if they have been allowed to get away with this other banks we go to wont try this to, something to be said of getting paid in cash like the old days no charges at all for that and as we once thought the banks don't keep our money safe for us it would safer under our mattresses.

I am very disappointed with the Halifax after 20 years of hassle free banking to now have this dropped on us all.

Good luck

 

I agree, there is nothing stopping them but then if you think about it, if all banks do this all their customers will do is leave them and go back to getting paid in cash and paying for bills via postal orders etc. and then we wont have any current accounts etc and no greedy bastards at the top.